“These are the times that try men's souls.” | I've fed and bought all types of bales. we used to bale with small squares and had self-propelled bale wagon. It was ok, but in order to save labor I went to a round baler 16 years ago. I thought I died and went to heaven! It cut out one baler and tractor plus driver. And I could haul more tons per hour with rounds, hard core 5x6 bales., A few years ago I traded to a net wrap baler, and just about cut my baling time in half again.
We feed a lot of round bales with a pitchfork, we stand them on ends at the mangers and fork them, they are easier to fork than ton bales. The easiest are the 3x3 bales, but you have to handle too many, 3x4 are ok to fork. I also feed with a Dewe eze bale bed, to some beef cattle.
We usally only get 10-14 inches of moisture here a year, But the last two years, just about got double that. The first year I can truly say I wrecked hay in round bales. To save space we stack bales kind of like a house. Two bales on ends, then put two bales on their sides on top of them, them one bale on it's side on top. We will make stacks up to 300' long. When I used only twine, hay never seemed to spoil much, the moisture was spread out evenly bewteen bales, but with net wrap it funnels the water right down to the two bottom bales stacked like that. The best way to stack rounds are on their sides, in a long row. But I would need 30 acres of stackyard to put them in!
If I buy any hay in ton or half tons, I try and feed it up before the first of Jan. here to save spoilage loss. I know it would pay to build hay sheds over the long run, But I'm able to feed 100% of my hay so it's not a total loss. I've been thinking about having the tarp guys, come and tarp my hay. Just never called them to check prices. If I was selling hay, and had ton bales I would do it.
My stackyards I like to have a 1-2% slope w/ gravel base under bales. Not all my stackyards have gravel in them. I really should check into the tarp guys coming and tarping hay, they provide a total service, they unroll tarps back to feed, and they pick them up in the spring was what I was told.
Edited by Russ In Idaho 10/26/2006 04:45
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bale storage
